About Me

Thursday, November 20, 2014

"We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable; so did the divine right of kings."

Ursula K. Le Guin, remarks at the National Book Awards. She acknowledged her fellow fantasy and sci-fi writers, who have for so long watched “the beautiful awards,” like the one she received, go to the “so-called realists.”

New Yorker: ... I think hard times are coming, when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies, to other ways of being. And even imagine some real grounds for hope. We will need writers who can remember freedom: poets, visionaries—the realists of a larger reality. Right now, I think we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. The profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable; so did the divine right of kings. … Power can be resisted and changed by human beings; resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art—the art of words. I’ve had a long career and a good one, in good company, and here, at the end of it, I really don’t want to watch American literature get sold down the river. … The name of our beautiful reward is not profit. Its name is freedom.

In the US, total cost of government was (conservatively, and ignoring dead-weight effects which are huge) 51% of GDP, so we are less than half capitalist. http://costofgovernment.org/cost-government-arrives-july-a1853